Refocused 20,000 Homes Campaign aims to end chronic homelessness in 20 communities and house 20,000 of Canada’s most vulnerable homeless people by July 1, 2020.

The CAEH announced an ambitious new goal for their 20,000 Homes Campaign today in front of over 1,000 participants of the 2017 National Conference on Ending Homelessnessin Winnipeg. The new goal reflects lessons from the first two years of the campaign, opportunities presented by shifting federal policy and a desire in campaign communities to move more aggressively on ending homelessness.

“From the beginning our goal was to use the campaign to begin the end of homelessness in Canada”, says Tim Richter, President & CEO of the CAEH. “Since then, we’ve realized we need to do more than house 20,000 people to help communities on the path to ending homelessness.”

“We’re learning a lot about what it takes to end chronic homelessness from our campaign communities and work with our Built for Zero partners in the US,” says Marie Morrison, Director of the 20,000 Homes Campaign. “20,000 Homes Campaign communities are pioneers in ending homelessness – they’re ambitious, daring, smart and relentless – and we think, together, the time is right to drive to end chronic homelessness.”

The shift in the campaign means putting more emphasis on critical community strategies like real-time data, coordinated access systems and performance improvement in addition to urgently housing our most vulnerable homelessness neighbours.

This federal government is expected to soon release a National Housing Strategy and changes to the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS) focused in part on cutting chronic homelessness in Canada in half. The HPS program is funding a pilot project with the 20,000 Homes Campaign to build By Name Lists and Coordinated Access Systems in five Canadian communities including: Toronto, Region of Peel, Lanark County, Whitehorse and Edmonton.

There are 35 communities in eight provinces currently participating in the campaign. To date, these communities have housed 9,298 people.

To learn more about the 20,000 Homes Campaign or to join, visit our website at www.20KHomes.ca.